Eh, I chose an auto knowing full well what I was getting into. At the time of purchase, my job required me to drive a lot, sometimes up to 150 miles a day, and a lot of those miles in downtown Washington DC or around the beltway in rush hour traffic. I really thought about getting a manual (even though that meant that I would have to get better at driving one- heh,) but ultimately the crappy traffic and hours spent driving every day decided me on getting the auto. Also, I dislocated my left knee when I was a teenager and the stupid thing still bothers me fairly often, so I figured that I would hate my life if I had to clutch in traffic for hours every day.

Honestly though it's fine, the car is nice for what it is, its still fun to mod and play with, and I seriously doubt that having it as a manual would make it into the super fast car that some people seem to think it would be. If I was going to have any purchasing regrets, I would regret not buying a used RX8 like I had been looking at when I was deciding on the tC, but that one really didn't make sense back then due to it's bad gas mileage...I don't drive much now though, but that's life. Now, in a few years (after both my and my wife's cars are paid off,) I plan on buying a much faster car and keeping my tC as my beater/bad weather car. That new car just may be stick, but seeing as how my wife can't drive stick to save her life, and that a lot of the automatics are actually pretty good, if not the same performance-wise as manuals now (Camaro SS, 370z, etc,) I wouldn't be sad if I got another auto really...